Understanding Contemporary Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism. Olexander Hryb

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СКАЧАТЬ i.e., national consciousness, Gellner, for instance, tends to use the terms “ethnic” and “national” consciousness interchangeably. This means that there is a certain coincidence at least on the level of terminology between the theories of Gellner and, for example, Bromley. Moreover, when both authors work in a materialistic paradigm they are in absolute agreement that national (like any other) consciousness is a consequence of socio-economic conditions (that is Gellner’s main claim). The difference is that Gellner or Anderson assume only an occasional, random overlapping of ethnicity and national consciousness, whereas for Bromley such overlapping was naturally systematic. One of the possible ways of explaining this difference in their position can be found in Hroch`s identification of Western and Eastern models of nations, with different levels of emphasis on ethnic and civic determinants. Gellner recognized that China, for instance, is an exception to his theory. In any case, the preceding conditions illustrate that there is a high enough degree of similarity in the common understanding of national identity phenomena to claim that between “modernist” and “primordialist” theories, on the one hand, and the Soviet tradition, on the other, there is a common ground which provides adequate understanding of the same concepts.

      Ukrainian scholars developed their own view on the matter after 1991. Zhmyr defined national consciousness as “a kind of group consciousness, which is based on social values, norms which define a person as belonging to a national community. National consciousness has the characteristics of a group consciousness and reflects the division between ‘we’ and ‘the other’ and in this way functions as a means of national integration. National consciousness should be considered as a higher level in comparison to ethnic consciousness” (Zhmyr 1991, 104).

      National identity is understood by the Ukrainian scholars in a cultural context as all norms of “ethnosocial behavior.” It is assumed that “national” means “ethnic” in the wider sense, as it was considered in the framework of Soviet Ethnography. The Short Encyclopedia of Ethno-State Science states that “national identity assumes that a group of people share the feeling of a common past, present and future as well as a certain consensus concerning the principal issues of economic, political, cultural and social life, the current development of the state and its policy’ (Mala 1996, 98). The article on national self-consciousness by Pustotin (Mala 1996, 103), and the article on different levels of national self-consciousness by Rymarenko (Mala 1996, 103-104), among others in the encyclopedia, illustrate that generally Ukrainian scholars throughout the 1990s remained within the boundaries of the Soviet “sociospheric” concept, and worked within a framework of “reflection theory” from a methodological point of view. Despite some discussion of this problem (Hryb 1997), this was the dominant paradigm in Ukraine for explaining the processes of national identity. Gradually, however, such scholars as Heorhiy Kasyanov, Yaroslav Hrytsak and Mykola Ryabchuk introduced Western modernist theories of nations as “imagined communities” and national identity as a “daily plebiscite” (Kasyanov 1999). Ryabchuk arrives at the conclusion that Ukrainians formed two types of national identity: one of a modern political nation in Western Ukraine and another of Little Russians (malorosy) in Eastern Ukraine that mostly consists of a ‘surzhyk’-speaking population that neither embraces Ukrainian high culture nor belongs to the Russian ethnos (Ryabchuk 2011, 6). Hrytsak similarly argues that nation-building in Ukraine is defined by competition of different models of civic national identity based on language (Ukrainian and Russian) rather than the competition of Ukrainian and Russian national ideas (Hrytsak 2011, 60). Myroslav Popovych concludes that the Ukrainian national idea exhibits a contradiction between an “ethnic” and a “political” understanding of the nation and, therefore, the political nation in Ukraine could only be multicultural and inclusive of various nationalities (bahatonatsionalna) (Popovych 2005, 10). Vadym Bondar arrives at the conclusion, based on Ukrainian historiography, that a liberal, civic and inclusive form of nationalism has a fairly good chance of success in Ukraine despite inevitable competition from more narrow ethnic nationalism (Bondar 2012, 330).

2.1.4 Ethnic Consciousness—Optional or Crucial?

      “Primordialists” consider ethnic identity as similar to a national one, belonging to the multiplicity of contemporary and historical identities. Llobera observes that, for the greater part of human history, the twin circles of religious and ethnic identity have been very close and have sometimes overlapped with each other (Llobera 1994, 217). This, presumably, is one of the reasons why mythical imagination is as important for ethnic as it is for religious consciousness (Smith 1991a; Shkliar 1992, 217). Smith also considers the perennial existence of ethnic consciousness in the social development of mankind and its great importance for the formation of national consciousness. According to this approach it is ethnic identity that as a rule (first of all through its myths and memories) creates a basis for the formation of national identity.

      “Modernists” do not assume any strict connections between ethnic and national consciousness. Gellner claims that only sometimes can ethnic consciousness be transformed, under pressure of the transition to industrialism, into a national one, but even in this case it substantially changes its nature according to new socio-economic conditions. This is almost the only crucial difference between the two visions.

      Gellner argues that ethnic consciousness belongs rather to historical identities and survives into the industrial epoch only in marginal forms. That is why the destination of ethnic identity in modern times can proceed mainly in two directions. First, it can construct (through its loyalties and affiliations) the basis for the social consciousness of a new type. Then the substantially transformed and developed ethnic consciousness becomes a national one. Second, and more likely, ethnic consciousness mostly or totally disappears and dissolves into other identities of the new era.

      On this subject the difference between “primordialist” and “modernist” is how they estimate the role of ethnic consciousness in nation-building. For the latter, ethnic consciousness is only an occasional substrate for the creation of the new identity needed for industrial society. For the former, ethnic identity is an active agent of new national identity as well as a new important element for the consolidation of national unity.

      In this sense, the Soviet Ethnography approach, and the predominant current views of the Ukrainian scholars, is definitely in agreement with “primordialists.” First, ethnic consciousness (using the wider meaning of term) is considered to be an attribute of ethnos. Second, ethnic consciousness (in a narrow meaning) is not imagined to be excluded from a national one. According to Bromley, ethnic consciousness, as the other modern form of social consciousness, possesses its reflexive level not only on an individual, but also on a social level. This means that ethnic consciousness not only does not dissolve but actually develops. This statement is determined by a vision of ethnos as a dynamic system, i.e., a process, which was common for the Soviet tradition and is preserved by contemporary Russian scholars.8 An individual ethnic self-consciousness is believed to have its expression in reflexive ethnic affiliation and awareness of one’s own actions, motives and interests in this context. Collective imaginations about typical characteristics and achievements of the community represent the self-consciousness of ethnos. The latter can be fixed not only through personal expressions but also in impersonal ones, i.e., in other objective forms of social consciousness—language, folklore, art, scientific literature, norms of morality and law (Chesnokov 1991; Ionin 1996, chs. 4-6). The most formal expression of self-consciousness on the social level is considered to be a common ethnic name.

      Ukrainian scholars consider ethnic consciousness on the individual level as a multitude of knowledges, attitudes and aspirations about the culture, tradition, values and self-identification with a group and within the context of other groups. The individual acquires this consciousness during the process of “ethnization,” i.e., personal or group experience. The structure of ethnic consciousness includes ethnic or national character, customs, ethnocentrism, ethnic feelings, ethnic self-consciousness, self-identity, and so on. Each of the elements is considered to be “quite a complicated psychological phenomenon with its СКАЧАТЬ